


Still Not Normal

by Winter_of_our_Discontent



Series: So Far From Normal [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-20
Updated: 2011-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:36:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winter_of_our_Discontent/pseuds/Winter_of_our_Discontent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Companion piece to So Far From Normal; Sherlock isn’t sure why John bothers with pretending</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Not Normal

John is being stupid. Now, Sherlock is well aware that stupid is the default state of most of humanity. But this is different, because John is not most of humanity, even if he insists on pretending he is, which is why he’s being stupid by acting as if he’s as stupid as everyone else is, when he is clearly not. Except right now.

He’s off at Sarah’s again, even though it’s obvious he’s so tired from their case last night he’s not going to manage more than falling asleep on her couch. Again. His entire campaign with her is beginning to resemble Ypres in World War I, constantly conquering, retreating, and then reconquering the same few feet of battlefield. At least there’s little chance of mustard gas. At her apartment, anyway.

And it’s stupid, because John could be here, with him, which would be far more interesting because _Sherlock_ is far more interesting, he’s quite the most interesting person he knows. And that certainly makes him the most interesting person _John_ knows. Maybe he’d even play the violin for him, show John that he can do more with it than “imitate an alley cat in heat” as John had once described it. Sarah couldn’t do that. She’d obviously studied the piano as a small child but had barely made it past scales before her father’s job loss had forced them to cancel the lessons, which she’d been secretly pleased about. Boring and oh so _normal._

John isn’t normal. A normal person would be gone by now, wouldn’t laugh with him at crime scenes or shoot murderers with an illegal gun and deadly accuracy (and surely there was a story behind his marksmanship that Sherlock needed to unravel). John fakes normal, though, with an ease that Sherlock is almost but not quite jealous of, because while Sherlock can pantomime it for perhaps a few hours at a time, John can apparently seem like an average human being for months, maybe years, perhaps even for so long that he himself is fooled by it.

Sherlock wonders if it’s possible to pretend to be stupid for so long you actually _become_ stupid, and then shudders at the thought.

It’s like the refrigerator. John would likely _prefer_ there be more food in there, and fewer bits of cadaver, but he doesn’t actually _mind._ Oh, he says he does, is prepared to send pointed looks Sherlock’s way when he has to move a small intestine to get to the butter, but Sherlock has seen when Dr. John H. Watson actually _minds_ something, and that usually ends in injury for the person responsible. So obviously he just complains because he thinks he ought to, which isn’t at all the same thing. And if John actually _minded_ most of the things Sherlock does, like borrow his things or take up his personal space, he’s not so much of a pushover (he invaded Afghanistan, after all) that he wouldn’t find a way to make it clear that Sherlock needed to stop, or he’d move out, or do any number of things that he hasn’t done because he doesn’t actually really mind it at all. Obviously.

John is perfectly capable of drawing a line in the sand, no matter what those idiots at NSY mutter to themselves when they don’t think he’s paying attention. And thus far, the only line John has drawn is _You’re not allowed to kill Sherlock._ And _No I will not spy on Sherlock for you._ Oh, and _Sherlock if you ever do anything that completely stupid without me again you had better hope it kills you because if not I will and without you no one in the Met will be smart enough to figure out where the body is hidden._

Sherlock knows better than to delete that last one. He couldn’t even argue that of course Mycroft would be able to, because then he’d have to admit that Mycroft was competent and they both know he’d never do _that._

Eventually, John is bound to figure out he’s not normal. He’s not a complete idiot, after all. And then he can quit wasting so much energy pretending to be and get on with figuring out the even more important thing, because it would be nice if they could finally get on the same page about that too.

John’s not normal. He is, however, Sherlock’s, and that’s much better anyhow.


End file.
